Monday, October 22, 2012

Best poll news I've seen in days. Plus: What will Mitt do?

Obama up 5 among likely voters in Ohio, says Quinnipiac. This is outside the margin of error. This poll is the first indicator I've seen that the second debate had a pro-O impact. Or maybe it indicates that Obama's numbers tick upward when people start to forget the debates. (There's an argument to be made for that proposition.)

By the way, I hope you caught Taibbi's latest, which is both wise and hilarious:

Romney has all of America right now running head-scratching analyses of his tax and jobs plans, trying to figure out if there's any way the numbers fit. But my guess is, independent voters are not reading those dense commentaries, and instead are responding more to the general vibe surrounding Romney's campaign, which is clearly benefiting from the fact that he's being so aggressive that the whole world is left scrambling to react to his bullshit.

I think the new strategy, rather than try to swim down into the deep waters of Romney's bogus plans, should be to stay on the surface and simply ask him simple questions. For instance, on his convoluted tax plan, just ask these two questions:

2) If there is no pain, and the whole thing really is "revenue neutral," WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT?

Now, cynically, we know what the "point" is. The point is to win an election by promising a 20% tax cut with one hand while promising that nobody will have to pay for it with the other. It's brilliant stuff – the ecstasy of pure bull.

When dealing with a man determined to lie his way into office, one can do little else but call him a liar. Repeatedly.

What will Mitt do? So what is the reality of Romney's plan for governance? I think the most revealing "tell" occurred during the VP debate, when Ryan began spewing nonsense about our allegedly undernourished Navy. Apparently, it has shrunk to the point that it can barely match a flotilla of rubber duckies and newspaper boats.

That fib reminded me of a long-ago Cannonfire post...

The only ideologically permissible jobs program will involve military Keynesianism, funded by yet more massive debt. That's how Reagan did it.

Of course, the right will need to prepare the way for that course of action with a propaganda barrage designed to portray America as militarily weak. A similar barrage flooded the media starting in 1977-1978.

If my suspicions are correct, then you should expect the new barrage to hit at some point during 2010 and 2011. The propaganda blitz will start with a flurry of alarming reports from the Army War College and similar institutions. These reports will pretend that the American infantry is still using muskets, the Air Force is still flying King Kong-style bi-planes, and the Navy is still sailing three-masted frigates. "And that's why we need to double our investment in weapons development now now now."

I predicted that the propaganda barrage would begin in 2010. Okay, so my timing was wrong. We're seeing the first salvos now. If Mitt wins, we'll probably see reports claiming that our soldiers still wear tri-corner hats while carrying powder in sacks.

Ryan more or less admitted that he thinks that his proposed tax cuts will pay for themselves through expanded growth. In other words, he's an unrepentant Laffer-er. But the only precedent he could cite was when Johnson implemented tax cuts proposed by JFK.

What Ryan doesn't tell you -- what nobody on the right will ever tell you -- is that those tax cuts did not "pay for themselves." Increased growth matched only one third of the cuts. JFK accepted the idea of deficits; having inherited more-or-less balanced books, he had room to play.

Romney doesn't have that luxury. Yet his likely course of action -- massive tax cuts, massive weapons spending on the credit card -- will inevitably make the deficit much worse.

Most people on the right won't mind. They never carp about the debt unless a Democrat is in office. But taxpayers ought to mind, because they pay for the interest on that debt.

As I demonstrated in my video on Debate 1, those in the 100k-200k bracket will pay about $1200 more per year if the Bush tax cuts are maintained, as Romney promises to do. If the deficit increases dramatically, people in that bracket will be forking over -- well, I can only guess what the amount will be. Maybe 5k a year, maybe more. Just to service the interest on the debt.

Okay, well I just voted today, making use of Ohio's early voting feature. I voted for, among other candidates vying for other positions, Barack Obama. So I've done my part here in Ohio. He better fucking win. I had a viscous fight with my mum wherein she said Barack Obama is a muslim and I said no he isn't, he's a protestant christian and among other issues we discussed was the Republican Party's racism. She claims that the Democratic Party is actually racist and prejudice against 'white people' and that Obama could only win because all 'black people' were voting him because "there are no black republicans", according to her. She's fucking insane though.

Jay.

posted by Joshua Laudermilk : 5:07 PM

J, if it helps, you can tell your mother that I am 100 percent positive that Obama is not a Muslim. I doubt that he is particularly religious -- but only because I think most politicians are less religious than they pretend.